


Doomed

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Comedy, Friendship, Hogwarts Era, Romance, Second War with Voldemort, The Quidditch Pitch: From Diagon Alley to Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-05
Updated: 2008-10-05
Packaged: 2018-10-27 16:23:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10812615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: Why was Trelawnley so interested in Professor Lupin's health and welfare during Christmas Feast in POA? Maybe she wanted to do more than herald his doom.





	Doomed

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

“Oh, my dear Professor,” Sibyil called out after him. “My poor _dear_ Professor-” All of Remus Lupin's mother's rules of common courtesy warred with the unease he felt around her and the urge to bolt her voice always brought on. He wasn’t certain just what it was—it certainly wasn’t that he feared she’d somehow mystically learn his secret—everybody knew what a fraud she was and for that he sympathised with her more than most.

 

Such a precarious way to live—always terrified that someone would discover that you weren’t what you pretended to be.   
 

 

No, it was more the note of desperation in her voice, the plea that always seemed present in those abnormally large and further magnified eyes. It was the way she touched him when the opportunity presented itself, clutching at the fabric of his robes, robes that really didn’t need her assistance to fall completely apart.  
 

 

But today she had him well and truly trapped and he was tired and achy and didn’t have it in him to fight her. A bit of tea, some tasteless organic soy cakes and a prediction of his imminent doom—what harm could it do, really?  
 

 

He remembered her from school third year—the enthusiasm written all over her face during their first Divination class and the subsequent devastation as she tried to come to terms with her failures.   
 

 

He’d had to admire her for putting a brave face on it, though—the way she had held her head up after their O.W.L.s—she’d only passed because the examiner was quite deaf—he’d got an Outstanding in the subject himself.  
 

 

And here she was and here he was and he certainly was in no position to reject friendship when it was offered.  
 

 

He began to regret his decision though as the potent incense in her quarters set off his oversensitive sinuses, causing his vision to blur and his thoughts to become scattered. She showed him with a flourish to an overstuffed chaise lounge covered in purple and red flowers and draped with a green and gold paisley throw. He perched on the edge and found himself giggling nervously as she took off his shoes, not caring about the toe poking through his right sock nearly as much as he ought to have.   
 

 

“Oh, my poor dear,” she said. “You do need a woman to take care of such things for you...” She went about tugging his socks off his feet and he couldn’t think of anything to do but sputter lame protests, all of which she waved away languidly as she took his poor beleaguered socks over to her knitting basket, where she set a pair of needles to clacking away.  
 

 

 

And there went his chance for a speedy exit, he thought, as he tried not to get swallowed up by the chaise and stared at his absurdly bare and pale toes with a sense of inevitability.  
 

 

She handed him tea and set a plate of unappetizing scones in front of him, and he picked up one and took a bite under her watchful eyes. Well, certainly he had eaten worse, but considering his financial situation and the fact that every now and again the wolf sated his hunger with small game, that wasn’t saying much.  
 

 

 

When she was satisfied that his physical needs were attended to, she sat down before a velvet draped table and her crystal ball, waving her hands over it and murmuring an incantation he didn’t remember from school.  
 

 

His head was growing foggier with every moment spent in her cramped quarters, so much so that he lost what initial fear he had that she would go on about full moons and the like. He needn’t have worried, though; because what she did do was to paint a picture of loneliness for him that he suspected had a lot more to do with her own life than his. Not that she didn’t touch a nerve once or twice, and he wavered between irritation at her lack of tact and feeling sorry for her—a feeling that he didn’t know what to do with. He was much more familiar with being the object of pity rather than the pitier.  
 

 

He quite lost her train of conversation as he pondered this new experience, so it took a moment to register that she’d moved away from the table and was now sitting beside him on the chaise, her hand perched delicately on his knee.   
 

 

He certainly noticed when she stroked upward, though, and he sat bolt upright, spilling a bit of tea in the process. (There went another pair of trousers he couldn’t afford to replace) But she was one step ahead of him (possibly more used to the effects of her incense than he was) first dabbing at them with the tea towel and then reaching for his flies with a surprising amount of deftness.  
 

 

Before he could utter the first word of protest, he found himself standing in his pants, sorely tempted to just leave with whatever dignity he could salvage. He would make his way back to his own quarters, white spindly legs and bare feet peeking out the bottom of his robes and all. But damn the sort of ice-cold floors that were only possible in an ancient Scottish castle in February, and with his luck he’d run into Peeves, who would announce his predicament to the entire student body. And Snape, he thought, and groaned.  
 

 

She’d already set the trousers to cleaning and returned to fuss over him further—she forced him back onto the chaise and topped off his tea with a bit of brandy. She sat beside him once more, her hand returning to his (now bare) knew and stroking it with slow circles that felt surprisingly good.  
 

 

With a sigh, he wondered what he was fighting her for, and as she slipped out of her spangled paisley shawl to reveal an almost normal set of dark green robes with a low neckline and the sort of bosom that might be rather pleasant to bury one’s face in, he surrendered to fate.

 

It was one of the warmest winters of Remus Lupin’s life.


End file.
